Residents Push Back Against One Westfield Place Development At Meeting

WESTFIELD, NJ — Many residents spoke out at Tuesday's Westfield Town Council meeting, expressing concerns about overdevelopment, as well as the large size and scale of the One Westfield Place redevelopment project.

More than 900 people have signed a petition to demand that the mayor, town council and planning board "rethink" the One Westfield Place development. Many of these residents voiced their disapproval of the project on Tuesday night, whereas the mayor and many council members reaffirmed their confidence in the project.

Resident Kyle Richards complained about the scale of the project, which is slated to be a 731,000 square-foot complex with office space, residential apartments and retail space.

"I think the proposed development is too massive for our town and is out of character for our town," Richards said.

Several residents also relayed concerns about increased traffic and doubted some of the statements that were made in the traffic impact study, which was presented in a recent Facebook Live with Mayor Shelley Brindle.

Read more: 4 Takeaways From The One Westfield Place Traffic Impact Study

Because of the traffic improvements, such as new stoplights and crosswalks, that Streetworks is proposing for 12 intersections as part of the project, the traffic engineer argued that the average wait time for cars would decrease.

However, many residents said they found this hard to believe, as the new development will bring in more people and cars to the downtown.

Resident Tony Laporta said he doesn't have a problem with Streetworks developing the Lord & Taylor property, since it's privately owned. But he said he finds the development of the South Avenue train station parking lot to be problematic.

Streetworks has proposed two new parking garages for public use on North Avenue and South Avenue that can accommodate over 450 vehicles.

Laporta argued that parking garages are inconvenient for Westfield commuters.

"I think an open parking lot is a major advantage for Westfield," Laporta said. "I commuted for 37 years into New York City, and one of the beauties of having an open parking lot is you drive in, you park and you go.

"When you're a commuter, the most important minutes of your day are commuting... I truly believe that if we add parking decks, it's going to add 20 to 25 minutes in total every day to a commuter's life. That's really, really bad," he said.

He also argued that the town should put the redevelopment project to a referendum vote, claiming that back in 2004, there was a non-binding referendum on a parking deck in Westfield that was voted down by 77 percent.

However, Mayor Brindle argued that both binding and non-binding referendum votes for a redevelopment are illegal. She said another issue with a referendum vote is that it is "all or nothing."

"There's too much opportunity here to put that at risk," Brindle said. "I think we can work together to get to a place where there's benefit for all of us. But putting this to an up or down vote — no."

Other residents mentioned that they were shocked by how large the development proposal was one when they first heard about it in September.

But Mayor Brindle said input on the project started in 2018 with the Master Plan. She argued that Streetworks was always designated as the developer of Lord & Taylor property, as well as the South and North Avenue lots.

She said it was never a secret that Streetworks would consider other properties other than Lord & Taylor for redevelopment.

"The concern was if they only developed the Lord & Taylor property, which they had intended to do, we were going to end up with one of two things — a Walmart ... or high density residential," Brindle said. "What we're trying to do is look at what can be in the best interest of our downtown to make sure that our downtown is vibrant and sustainable and can weather future economic downturns."

The mayor further argued that the council would never have brought forth a project to the public that they felt the town could not handle.

Councilman David Contract emphasized that the downtown needs more foot traffic in order to protect its economic vitality.

"We need the foot traffic," Contract said. "What are we willing tolerate to achieve that? If the bar is no extra traffic, then we're going to fail."

Brindle added that another benefit of the project is diversifying the town's tax base. Currently, she said 90 percent of Westfield's taxes are paid on the backs of single-family residents and that their taxes are the highest in Union County.

"We don't have a hospital, we don't have any types of major commercial base," Brindle said. "This [project] is an opportunity to actually increase and diversify our tax base to finally be able to deliver on the promise of Westfield without us feeling it in our annual tax bill."

She also said One Westfield Place would provide more opportunity for longtime residents to stay in Westfield.

"We all know that when you see a high school graduation sign, you often see a "for sale" sign," Brindle said.

Streetworks is designating 154 residential apartments to people aged 55 and older, which is something that Brindle said the council fought for because it reduces the impact on schools.

Councilman Mark LoGrippo, who has been a strong opponent for the development, argued that the town is giving up revenue that town would have made from Lord & Taylor to "give the redeveloper a 30-year tax abatement."

A presentation on the finances of One Westfield Place, as well as details about the PILOT program, is scheduled for Jan 11, with recordings available on the Westfield Facebook page.

You can view the full town council meeting on Westfield's Facebook page.